Artist Turns Old Skateboards Into Beautiful New Guitars

Nick Pourfard started Prisma Guitars based on his love for skateboarding and music. The 24 year old is a self-taught woodworker based out of San Francisco. He takes defunct skateboards and handcrafts them into beautiful, one-of-a-kind guitars.

Photo credit: Prisma Guitars

Photo credit: Prisma Guitars

Pourfard was 18 years old when he made his first guitar. "I wanted to build something I couldn’t buy that was sentimental to me. I passed by the old stack of skateboards my brother and I accumulated over the years and that was it," he told Cool Material.

All of the boards are donated to him by skate shops, distributors, skaters and fellow board recyclers.

The process is very "labor intensive," he said, and it takes him about two weeks to make one guitar. He has an online store, where he currently has two guitars for sale. He also accepts requests for made-to-order guitars.

Photo credit: Prisma Guitars

Photo credit: Prisma Guitars

Photo credit: Prisma Guitars

At EcoWatch, we love the idea of turning old skateboards into cool-looking guitars. For decades, mahogany, ebony, rosewood and other rare tropical hardwoods have been extensively logged—both legally and illegally—to produce valuable wood products, such as guitars and other instruments.

But consumers, who are increasingly aware of the impacts to forests and communities from over-harvesting, have begun to demand instrument manufacturers source their materials from legal, sustainably sourced wood. Musical artists, including Jason Mraz, Maroon 5, Linkin Park and Guster, have joined the call too.

Watch Prisma Guitars' video to learn more about how Nick Pourfard makes these beautiful guitars:

Watch the Environmental Investigation Agency's video of some of the top musical artists calling for an end to illegal logging:

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